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India fighting to retain trophy with series levelling Oval win

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Ben Stokes and Ravindra Jadeja have a robust discussion during the final moments of the fourth Test in Manchester.
Ben Stokes and Ravindra Jadeja have a robust discussion during the final moments of the fourth Test in Manchester. Darren Staples / AFP

If the last week is anything to go by, this fifth and final Test between England and India at The Oval in London could be the spiciest and most heated of the lot!

Match News and Current Form

The final 30 minutes of what was an otherwise drab draw in Manchester dominated the discourse between games after the widely publicised on-field behaviour of England leadership team Ben Stokes and Harry Brook drew widespread criticism even amongst British media. They nonetheless valiantly batted out a 157-over single innings at Old Trafford to ensure they’ll be avoiding their first home series loss to India in 18 years, but their job is not yet complete. 

That’s because India hold the trophy from a 4-1 home win in January 2024 and can therefore retain the trophy with a repeat of their Oval win in 2021, which in that instance put them 2-1 up on the way to a 2-2 drawn series. They confirmed during the week they’ll be sticking to their original plan of limiting Jasprit Bumrah’s workload to three games, a decision that was helped by the recovery of fast bowler Akash Deep who will return. 

India’s 70% win rate without Bumrah since his debut in January 2018 (W19, D3, L5), including the second game of this series, suggests he’s not as pivotal to their Test team as he may be to their white ball ones. Similarly, England have fared fairly well without their captain Stokes in recent years. Since he took the leadership in June 2022, England have played just four games without Ben and won three of them, defeating Sri Lanka 2-1 in a home series and thrashing Pakistan in Multan last year.

They have made four changes overall to their previous XI after their bowlers were subjected to a massive workload in Manchester, some 257 overs across two innings in fact. Ollie Pope will be desperately hoping to improve his 0-13 review record as a captain, whilst Jacob Bethell slots into the top order. Jamie Overton, Gus Atkinson and Josh Tongue all come into the side to make up a completely new bowling attack.

Head-to-Head History

In terms of Tests played on English soil since the start of the 2021 tour, the home nation still leads 4-3 with last week’s game the second of two draws to take place in that time. 

England holds a 5-2 record over India at The Oval with half of the 14 H2Hs resulting in stalemates. 

Hot Stats and Streaks

• Six of the last eight Oval Tests were won batting first

• The chasing side was bowled out for a first innings score of under 300 in each of the last eight Oval Tests

• In this series, Yashasvi Jaiswal has three first innings scores of 50+ and four second innings scores of under 30s

• Gus Atkinson's only Test appearance at The Oval (v SL 2024) was his worst - he returned match figures of 1-90

Key Players to Watch and Missing Players

It perhaps comes as no surprise that Surrey’s Ollie Pope loves batting at The Oval with his three Tests there producing three 50+ scores at an average of 64.40. That included a 154 at The Oval when he was captain against Sri Lanka last year, though his other six innings as skipper sw him dismissed for less than 20. The most likely candidate to stop him could be returning fast bowler Akash Deep, who boasts head-to-head figures of 3-38 from 7.5 overs bowled.

Jasprit Bumrah and Rishabh Pant are the confirmed outs for India as of Wednesday. Ben Stokes is injured for England, who are also resting Brydon Carse and Jofra Archer. Liam Dawson was dropped following an underwhelming comeback.

Betting Analysis

Mohammed Siraj has taken more than four wickets in just one of the four games in this series, which is why Siraj under 3.5 match wickets looks a good pick.